Illinois Sheriff Sues Craigslist For Prostitution; Apparently Unaware Of The Law

from the lookup-section-230-please... dept

If you're the sheriff, aren't you supposed to understand at least the basics of the law? Apparently not in Cook County, Illinois. Sheriff Thomas Dart is now suing Craigslist because it's "the single largest source of prostitution in the nation." Of course, we've been through some of this before. Atlanta's mayor mistakenly blamed Craigslist for prostitution a while back, but didn't do anything about it. Some Attorneys General were threatening to do stuff, so Craigslist finally changed its policies last year. Of course, as expected, all that did was make prostitutes disperse to other sites. In other words: same amount of prostitution, just a lot more difficult to catch.

There have been some officials who recognize this. Some police officers have realized that Craigslist certainly isn't to blame, and is, in fact, a great tool for tracking and catching prostitutes. Hell, even Dart's own staff has regularly used Craigslist as a tool to crack down on prostitution. His own office says it's used Craigslist to bust at least 75 prostitutes in the last 18 months. Rather than suing Craigslist, he should be thanking Craigslist for making it so easy to catch these prostitutes. It seems unlikely that this lawsuit will go very far. Craigslist is almost certainly protected by Section 230 safe harbors as the service provider. You would think that a sheriff that used the tool successfully for so long could recognize this... but apparently Dart would rather it be more difficult to find and arrest prostitutes.

Filed Under: cook county, illinois, liability, prostitution, section 230, thomas dart
Companies: craigslist

Illinois Legislator Tries To Amend Video Game Law That Was Deemed Unconstitutional

from the but-not-to-fix-it dept

Illinois was one of the early ones in a long list of states that tried and failed to set up anti-video game laws. It was (I think) either the second or third such law to then be thrown out as unconstitutional. Since then, nine or ten more states have all tried and failed to implement similar laws. However, it looks like one legislator in Illinois hasn't been paying much attention. He's trying to add some more clauses to the law, more than three years after it was rejected as unconstitutional. Of course, if he was looking to amend it in a way that fixed the unconstitutional part, you might understand it. But, he's not. He's just adding more restrictions to a law that has been deemed unenforceable. Another great moment in politics.

Filed Under: illinois, video games

Why Is Illinois Only Concerned About Canceling Online Gaming Services?

from the a-bit-narrowly-focused,-don't-you-think? dept

An anonymous reader points us to the news that the state of Illinois has passed a law in response to the complaint of one individual that it was extremely difficult to cancel his online subscription to the game Final Fantasy XI. So, now it's been added to the state's consumer fraud law that any online game needs to offer an easy online way to cancel the service. That's all well and good, but I'm wondering why it's limited only to online games? If you're going to go that far, why not focus on any online subscription service?

Filed Under: cancelation, illinois, online gaming

Next Thing To Ban: Walking While Talking On A Mobile Phone

from the no-chatting-for-you dept

Last month we pointed to some recent studies about how people walking while talking on mobile phones tend to do things that are riskier than those not talking on mobile phones and jokingly asked when politicians would start proposing bans on walking-while-talking, to go along with the popular bans on driving while talking. It didn't take long at all, actually. Parker Mason writes in to let us know that an Illinois lawmaker has proposed a ban on talking on a mobile phone while in a crosswalk. Combine that with jaywalking and you could really piss off a person who wasn't actually doing something dangerous. Actually, this isn't the first time such a thing has been proposed. Last year a similar law was proposed in New York, though I don't believe it went anywhere. It's nice that politicians want to protect people, but at some point you really have to ask why people can't take responsibilities for their own actions?

Filed Under: bans, illinois, mobile phones, walking